Commercial food product chillers, commonly referred to as blast chillers, are typically used to chill hot food products to a safe temperature for storage. For example, a hot food product at 145.degree. F. to 160.degree. F. or more may be taken just out of the oven, placed in the chiller, and rapidly cooled to a low temperature of 40.degree. F. or less. Such rapid chilling of the food product is desirable for a variety of reasons, including food safety.
Known food product chillers generally operate in one of two modes, namely a chill by temperature mode or a chill by time mode. In the chill by temperature mode a temperature probe is placed in the food product and the desired chilled temperature of the food product can be entered into the machine by a user. The chilling operation then runs until the temperature probe indicates that the food product has reached the desired chilled temperature. In the chill by time mode, a user simply enters a time period for chilling the food product and the chilling operation then runs for the entered time period. In either type of chilling operation a user may also set the type of chill (hard or soft), and/or a desired air temperature within the chilling compartment. Some chillers are also configured to operate in a freeze mode for freezing food products. As used herein the term "chiller" broadly encompasses both units which include a freeze mode and units which do not include a freeze mode.
One opportunity for user error with known chillers occurs during the initialization of a chill by temperature operation when the user must select one of several temperature probes to monitor the cooling cycle of a hot food product. When this step is performed properly, the user will insert a given temperature probe into a hot food product and identify the inserted probe for use in the chilling operation through a user input device. For this purpose the probes are typically numbered. The identified temperature probe will then monitor the temperature of the food product as it is cooled. Occasionally, however, the user will accidentally identify a different temperature probe than the one placed into the hot food product causing the cooling cycle of the food product to run improperly. When this error occurs it may also be necessary to discard the food product. Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a method for automatically identifying for use a temperature probe that has been placed into a hot food product, thereby eliminating the potential for user error.
Another opportunity for user confusion occurs during the loading and unloading of food products through a chiller door. Because opening of the chiller door can cause rapid temperature increases in the cooling compartment, users who monitor the cooling compartment temperature through a temperature display may become concerned that the chilling operation has been interrupted. When this confusion occurs users will occasionally discard food products as waste thinking them unsafe. A similar problem can occur in other types of cooling apparatus such as refrigerators having temperature displays. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method for filtering the temperature that is displayed to the user in a manner such that the responsiveness of the display to rapid temperature changes in the cooling compartment is reduced when the door is opened, thereby eliminating the potential for user confusion.